Boston Globe Announces Changes to Stock and Mutual Fund Coverage

Business Wire, May 30, 2006

BOSTON -- The Boston Globe announced today that beginning June 20, it would replace the weekday stock and mutual fund listings in the newspaper, with new financial news features and services in print and online. The Globe will continue to publish weekly stock and mutual fund listings in the Sunday paper.

E[acute accent]In print the Globe will introduce Money&Markets, a page of stories, graphics, and photos highlighting the most significant market events of the day. The new feature will run Tuesday through Saturday in the Business section. E[acute accent]The Globe's online site, Boston.com, will offer a new, more robust package of interactive tools and market information that includes personalized e-mail alerts about stocks and mutual funds and/or industries that readers are particularly interested in. E[acute accent]In addition, the Globe's Stock Quote line -- 617-822-5722 -- will continue to operate, providing stock and mutual-fund prices 24 hours a day. E[acute accent]"Readers have been turning to the Internet at an accelerating pace for stock and mutual fund quotes," said Martin Baron, editor of the Globe. "That has prompted many newspapers like ours to shift away from spending heavily on pages of financial tables in favor of enhanced web-based investor services." E[acute accent]The new Money&Markets page will feature stories and graphics on the market activity of the previous day, highlighting five companies whose stock moved significantly. Tables will show both local and national stocks that were most actively traded and gained or lost the most on a percentage basis. Additional graphics and tables will show the movements of major overseas markets; trading in major world currencies; and data on markets that affect consumers in their daily life, such as mortgage rates, oil prices, and gold prices. E[acute accent]Online at www.boston.com/business, users will be able to create a personalized portfolio of stocks and funds they are interested in and request daily e-mail updates of their portfolio, or alerts when news occurs in stocks or market sectors they have specified. A comprehensive package of news, data, and information will be available for all companies, integrating company filings with news from The Globe and other sources onto one web page. Mutual fund data will be greatly improved, including ratings from Lipper Inc. and a fund's top five stock holdings. E[acute accent]"The planned upgrade in Boston.com will allow readers to get easy, customized access to a vast array of useful investment data while a page in the Business section will focus on the market trends that are making news," Baron said. E[acute accent]The Boston Globe is part of The New York Times Company (NYSE: NYT), a leading media company with 2005 revenues of $3.4 billion, includes The New York Times, the International Herald Tribune, The Boston Globe, 15 other daily newspapers, nine network-affiliated television stations, two New York City radio stations and 35 Web sites, including NYTimes.com, Boston.com and About.com. The Company's core purpose is to enhance society by creating, collecting and distributing high-quality news, information and entertainment.